I seem to remember we ran a couple of times a week. The circuit must have been about five kilometers in all, which wasn’t bad going for a ten year old. Quinta, our red setter, knew the course and for every one of those laps my father and I ran she must have run the equivalent of four or more as she cantered back and forth to check on our progress. My father would set the pace and I would scramble along behind. We’d jog up from the house a few hundred meters, out through that gap in the wall at the end of the property barred only by a fallen log, onto the path that came down from the village, down a bit and over the old stone bridge and then right, hopping and striding the ruts left by the last motorcyclists to have come through when the weather had last been wet. Just to the right of the path at this point, over the dry riverbed, were the ruins of what must have been a farmhouse in its day. The roof had long since collapsed and what remained of the walls were crumbling. The ruins might have dated to at least the middle of the 19^th century, if not more, as on one of the walls you could clearly make out, on what remained of the rotting stucco, a child’s quite detailed etchings of paddle steamers and tall sailing ships. On the path we following a jagged dog’s-leg up the hill to the Guincho – Malveira road. Quinta, by then, must have run over and back across the road a number of times, quite unsupervised, but my father always made a point of calling her to heal loudly as we crossed. She was kind enough to pretend to obey.

Once over the road the path took us in a zigzag over a couple of brows, through a dense moorland of brush and pines, for about two kilometers to a point where the vegetation goes to ground and the view opens up majestically from right to left. The Sintra hills arch into the sea to your right at Cabo da Roca and as you turn your head you can follow the wild broken coastline all the way to Cabo Razo, nothing but the steel of the Atlantic in front of you. Beyond that; the Americas. I suppose that the poor and stony soil contains a fair amount of iron oxide because the dusty path that leads down towards the beach is quite red. At this last brow – just off the path – is a pile of rocks that served as a seat for us to catch our breath and take in the view. Quinta would also stop for a pant. This place will forever remind me of my Father and after a frank exchange he and I had a few weeks ago I can only assume he relates this place to me also. Below you, down the slope, is the restaurant above Praia do Abano. The place was stuck in a time warp right out of the height of the Estado Novo and was run by a very dry and stiff man who seemed constantly strung out and seemed to find it painful to be friendly. We went there for lunch every so often for years and years until one day, as a family, we all decided we’d had enough of being made to feel like he was doing us a favour. It is a pity; the menu never changed and was unimaginative but the food was wholesome and good. Their sopa de marisco was to die for. Next to this is 17^th century fort slightly down and left, above the cliffs. Years later, in November 2002, this is the spot, high above the crashing waves, that my Father and I chose as appropriate to assist, via mobile, the spreading of my grandmother’s ashes fifteen hundred kilometers away on Beachy Head.

The path down was part dust part scree and took us onto the beaten track that led on to Abano if you went straight. We would hang a left, running behind what then became Bar do Guincho, and back towards the main road dropping us right behind O Púcaro and back into the valley that led back to our house, about a kilometer and a half away. The path here followed the course of the dry riverbed and past a number of small farms with enclosures for chickens and other fowl. Once when my father wasn’t there and I’d been out to the beach with friends, Quinta got into one of the chicken coops and killed what turned out to be an egg-laying hen. The owner of the hen was quite upset and asked where we lived. I pointed timidly up the valley and he followed us back to the house, the lifeless and mangled hen swinging by its legs from his right hand. My parents were on the terrace finishing a long Sunday lunch with a number of friends over yet another bottle, no doubt, when us kids arrived; irate farmer, ravaged bird and all. My Father was highly apologetic and I think the matter was settled for a conto and we kept the bird. I don’t remember what happened to it but Quinta might well have been served it for dinner the following day.